They held meetings and heard sermons in the warehouse of a wealthy draper; and shortly before Mrs. Matthew's demise they built a chapel, still extant, in a dingy little thoroughfare known as Waterhouse-lane.

The destinies of fictional early scientist Daniel Waterhouse, "King of the Vagabonds" Jack Shaftoe, and former-harem-girl-turned-economics-wizard Eliza improbably yet inevitably weave together through court intrigue, Le Roi himself and the founding of the Royal Society, but even that doesn't begin to cover Quicksilver's joyous sprawl.

But it was an inspired idea of Bean's to transpose the action to glamorously sleazy 1963 Brighton: a place that, as Keith Waterhouse famously said, always look as if it is about to help police with their enquiries.